


ghosts that we knew.

by eoghainy



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Valenfield - Freeform, hints of nivanfield, minor characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 12:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16387607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eoghainy/pseuds/eoghainy
Summary: but you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart.





	ghosts that we knew.

In the years since Edonia, since China, things had been good.

Well, as good as they could get with Chris. After he arrived back in the States from China, clutching Piers’ bloodied B.S.A.A. patch in a gloved fist and trembling beyond belief, he had drank. Drank every sorrow, every bit of denial, every feeling away until there was nothing but crippling emptiness. And with crippling emptiness came the desire to take a life, came the hatred, came the poor impulse that led to Chris shoving the barrel of a gun in his mouth on New Years and failing to pull the trigger. It had been Claire that found him, tucked away in the bedroom of his apartment with a suicide note on the kitchen table, and that was when Claire put her foot down.

Patient, loving, snarky Claire had snapped, finally lost her grip on the last straw when it came to Chris, and didn’t even give him a chance to explain himself. Instead, after unloading the gun that he had practically had to wrestle her to keep, she called in reinforcements. Barry arrived first, because he had been in the area, then Leon, and lastly, Jill ( because she had to catch a flight to get back to Washington ). Claire had called Rebecca, too, but she had been in Australia for a conference and because it was so last minute, she couldn’t get out of it.

It was the first intervention that Chris had ever had in his life, and it was painful. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of arguing, a lot of tears being shed and pleading. _Chris please, get some help, please, you’re scaring us, you need to get help, not wanting to live anymore is crazy, please get some help before we lose you entirely, don’t make us lose you_.

At 4:09 in the morning, Chris finally relented and agreed to go to a rehab facility that Leon had specifically picked out of him. It was specialized for soldiers suffering from severe PTSD, addictions, and general mental instability. He’d go, he’d really try, and then when he came back, he’d be a new person.

_“We’ve done it your way for years now, Chris. We’re doing it our way now.”_

He went. He tried. He got sober.

After eight weeks ( and the promise of returning as an out patient to keep up on his sobriety ), Chris came home. Barry, Claire, Jill and Rebecca took turns checking in on him; Claire even came to stay with him for a few short months, claiming that it was because she missed him, but Chris knew that she was just making sure that he wasn’t drinking again behind their backs. Leon would have been there every step of the way, too, but he had become so caught up in his work that Chris didn’t blame him. In fact, he was glad he didn’t have Leon’s knowing, sad gaze watching him. He loved Leon, he really did, but the man could be hard to deal with sometimes, especially when all Chris wanted to do was be alone.

Like he promised Piers, he didn’t retire. He stayed up to date with the B.S.A.A., going out on their orders solely. What he did do, though, was take less missions. With the brain damage, and the doubt in his own abilities as a leader, Chris couldn’t put himself out there. Not like that, not anymore. Everyone understood. No one pressured him to do anything more.

The one thing that did get him heat from superiors was the fact that he refused to pick another lieutenant. No matter how much he healed, how much time had passed, the memory of Piers still remained ingrained in his mind and he just couldn’t bring himself to fill that space. So, he didn’t. It was easier that way. Years after the fact, he still found himself reaching for the com on his desk to summon Piers into his office. He still made jokes that only he seemed to understand. He still saw Piers in every young, talented sniper; in every clean – cut young man with hazel eyes. That emptiness on this team, and in his heart, would never be filled.

When Chris gained his confidence in himself back ( even if it was still minimal ), he returned to active field duty with a fresh, young, talented team that he absolutely loved. Nadia, the first female member on Alpha, was someone he was quite fond of. She was snarky yet fun, respectful yet challenging. He had met her partner several times over the years, and boy, he adored both of them. They were good people. D.C. and Damian were a different story. They shared Chris’ own background with military, and the fact that they had already worked closely together prior to Alpha just fueled Chris’ decision to hire them. The dynamic that D.C. and Damian shared reminded him a lot of his and Piers’ own, and though it twisted at his heart to think of it, it was refreshing, familiar, calming.

They grew close over the years. Though Chris was mostly a silent member on Alpha, observing how closely they all grew, he picked up on their likes, on their personalities. They all loved _Breaking Bad_ , and though they all seemed to be hardened soldiers they knew how to laugh and how to empathize. They were softies underneath everything, and Chris couldn’t imagine a better team to return to.

Nadia was bold, one day, and she had asked Chris why he hadn’t ever appointed another lieutenant. The way she had looked at him, with earnest eyes and genuine curiosity, Chris hadn’t been able to tell her the truth. They all knew about the tragedy in China, of the tragedy in Edonia. They knew of Chris’ immortalized failures. They knew of Piers Nivans and how he never made it back, how the C – Virus had been the very thing that stole his life. They knew that, and yet Nadia still asked him, and Chris hadn’t been able to say the truth. So instead, he told her never thought it necessary.

_“I can lead this team just fine on my own. I’m not going to appoint someone just to argue with them.”_

It was 2017. Bioterror in the world had slowed down, thankfully, but Chris was never fooled by the silence. There was always another company out there, always ready to start another war, always ready to release the next new virus upon the unsuspecting world. It was only a matter of time before Glenn Arias, the mastermind behind the new A – Virus, popped upon the B.S.A.A. radar. Cathy White, a dear and old friend of Chris’, was dispatched to be undercover and keep an eye on him, to report back to HQ and inform them if the rumors are, in fact, true.

Three weeks into it and Cathy and her son, Zach, went missing.

Chris personally requested the task of finding her, and thusly was paired up with a military squad team that he had to brief and prepare for the horrors that they were going to face in this mansion. ( _Why was it a mansion every single fuckin’ time? It seemed like every villain Chris had ever encountered was a Spencer want_ _– to – be in one way or another._ ) The entire estate was infected, and though Chris came face – to – face with Arias, his mission had been declared a failure. Cathy and her son were dead, already infected, and there was no bringing them back.

With his obsessive personality and his tendency to fall back on old habits, it was a surprise that Chris didn’t go and drink after that. Instead, his focus shifted to hunting Arias down. His need to get revenge, to make Arias pay, got others in trouble. Rebecca, Leon, his own squad. What was supposed to be simple, what was supposed to be easy, turned into an absolute nightmare.

New York was where Arias was going to strike first, and the man was smart enough to have his very own trump card over Chris; Rebecca. He and Leon, and Alpha team, were trying to track down the cure they knew Arias had to save New York when it all went to shit. A poor judgement call led to Damian getting killed, then Rebecca got infected with the A – Virus, and though he and Leon managed to defeat Arias on even ground, the fucker _mutated_ and time ran short.

Rebecca nearly turned. Leon nearly died. Damian did die, and so did Nadia. New York had been saved, Rebecca had been given the cure in time, but the damage to Chris had been done. It was all too easy to tear him off of his high place now. One failure, and he was looking for a bottle to drown himself in. As mentioned before, it was a habit. A fallback.

They went back to Washington. Nadia died of her injuries on the way there, with Rebecca telling Chris that there wasn’t anything that could have been done.

_“She was bleeding internally, Chris. There was no way you could have known. The injuries Arias gave her were just too great. There was no way anyone could have saved her.”_

If that was his excuse for Nadia, then what was his excuse for Damian? If he had voiced the question aloud, both Leon and Rebecca would have jumped to his defense, telling him that there was no way he could have known that there were Cerberus’ in that truck. No way he could have known. Why was that his defense for everything?

Chris did his report in the office sober. Chris went home drunk.

Years of sobriety washed down the drain with this. Sober, he told Nadia’s girlfriend what happened, that Nadia died. He held her as she sobbed into his chest, barely able to support her weight because his own legs felt so weak. He told Damian’s family, listened to them cry, ask if he died quickly. He said yes. It wasn’ta lie. He attended their funerals sober, and went home to be drunk by himself.

He was expecting Claire to show up at his doorstep, to frown at him with her hands on her hips and ask him what he thought he was doing. He was expecting Barry to come over, to comfort him and give him that fatherly advice that Chris loved to ignore. Hell, he was even expecting Rebecca to come over and gently pry the bottle out of his hands and help him sober up, but none of that happened.

Instead, at his door a few hours after the funeral was one Jillian Valentine.

_“Let me in, Chris, I’m not here to yell at you.”_

He let her in.

Chris didn’t remember how they got to his bed. He didn’t remember how long he and Jill had been sitting in his living room, Jill simply resting her head on his shoulder and stroking his hair while he downed as much whiskey as he could stand. He didn’t remember who kissed who first. All he remembered was tasting Jill Valentine on his tongue and thinking, _yes, this, this is what I want_ , of his hands being surprisingly steady as they lifted her into his arms. He remembered them stumbling into walls, with Chris’ coordination being so off, before finally hitting the bed. Her voice was close to his ear the entire night, whispering to him, his name the only prayer that she could think of.

He fell into her, and together, they fell apart.

Chris had woken up sober yet regretful, and Jill had woken up exhausted. He could still hear her saying his name, still feel her warm hands on his face, still taste her in his mouth. He didn’t say anything about it, and neither did she. She didn’t leave, and Chris didn’t ask her to. It happened again, this time slower, more gentle, and she let him hold her after, not saying a thing about the silent tears that dripped down his cheeks and onto her shoulder. He could practically hear her thoughts as they stayed like that for most of the day.

_If this is how I can be there for you, let me be there for you, Chris. Let me see you, let me love you, let me hold you. Let me in, Chris. You’re not alone. I’d rather this than have you drink again._

The months after were long. Chris fell off the wagon a lot, though no one could find the will or the energy to be angry with him for it. It was understandable. Even though his superiors picked a new team for him ( with the careful guidance of Jill ), they didn’t pick a lieutenant, and Chris didn’t come back to work fully until he was sober again. Until his hands stopped shaking when he entered the B.S.A.A. building, until his throat stopped being so parched when he was stressed, until his head stopped swimming with need whenever he thought of everyone whom had died along the way.

_“Just promise me, we’ll be alright.”_

He had said to Jill when sobriety was a constant thing in his life, genuinely asking her. She had looked at him with her eyes, so pale and no longer blue, seeming to pierce through the layers of skin and muscle until she reached his soul. The smile that pulled at her lips, that lit up her eyes, told him everything he needed to know.

_“Yeah, Chris, I think we’re going to be alright.”_

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i hc that nadia died of her injuries after the events of vendetta bc there's no way she could have lived. there is NO WAY. thnx.


End file.
